If a woman is pregnant; is it permissible for a man to attend to her delivery?

The questioner : The questioner:The questioner : He says: If a woman is pregnant; is it permissible for a man to attend to her delivery?

The Shaykh : The reality is that this issue is one of the matters with which Muslims are afflicted today. The pregnant woman used to give birth in her own home, with the help of some of her female relatives, or some of what is called the or the in some countries. The conditions have changed, and this is all due to Muslims being influenced by foreign Western traditions, in accordance with the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): . They said: O Messenger of Allah, the Jews and the Christians? He said: . In a narration by al-Tirmidhi and others, there is an emphasis on this blind imitation of these disbelievers in the worst that a Muslim can imagine; where he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in the hadith of al-Tirmidhi: ! The Messenger of Allah spoke the truth, for we see that the imitation by Muslims of the disbelievers includes the worst of traditions and customs. Among these is that it has become a necessary custom that every woman must give birth in the hospital, whether she is compelled to do so or not. It has become a routine matter, to the point that even poor families try to cut back on their necessary expenses so that they can have the pregnant woman deliver in the hospital. This is imitation by Muslims of the disbelievers.
What we say—and this is part of the introduction and preamble—is that the original principle of admitting a woman to the hospital for delivery is not permissible to be declared permissible in an absolute sense. Rather, it must be defined and restricted. It is said: If the midwife or the female doctor supervising this pregnant woman sees, based on her knowledge, that this woman’s delivery will be abnormal and may require a surgical operation on her, in this case she is transferred to the hospital. But if the delivery is normal, it is not permissible for her to leave, or to be taken out of her home, and enter the hospital solely to have a normal delivery. This is one point. The other is: if the woman is compelled to enter the hospital within these narrow limits that we mentioned, it is obligatory that a man—the male doctor—does not attend to her delivery. Rather, she must be delivered by a female doctor. If no female doctor is available, then at that time there is no harm, and we may even say it is obligatory—if her delivery is in danger—that the male doctor deliver her, as long as a female doctor is not present.
This final detailed answer is derived from two rules from the science of usul al-fiqh (the principles of jurisprudence), without which one who has no knowledge of it cannot answer well on the issues that arise, especially if they are new and have not been addressed by previous scholars:
The first rule: "Necessities permit the prohibited."
The other rule—and it restricts the first one: "Necessity is estimated by its degree."
Therefore, we said: if the woman is able to give birth to her child in her home, it is not permissible for her to go to the hospital. If she is compelled, a female doctor attends to her delivery, not a male doctor. If no female doctor is available, the male doctor attends to her delivery; because we said: "Necessity is estimated by its degree." Our statement that necessity is estimated by its degree obliges us to say that the woman is the one who delivers her. But if the woman is not available, we say—then: "Necessities permit the prohibited." This delivery by a man for a woman when no female doctor is available is not worse than a Muslim being exposed to eating what Allah has forbidden, namely carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine. For Allah (Mighty and Majestic) mentioned in the conclusion of the verse: . It is permissible for you to eat from these prohibited things, but His saying (the Exalted): from this verse, from its context and sequence, the scholars derived the two aforementioned rules: "Necessities permit the prohibited," but not absolutely; rather, necessity is estimated by its degree; because He said: . For example, a man in the desert is exposed to death from hunger, and he finds carrion, or finds the flesh of a swine or something similar. He does not sit and eat from this carrion as if he were eating fresh, lawful meat until he satisfies his hunger. Rather, he eats only the amount that satisfies his need and saves his life from destruction. This verse is the source of the two aforementioned rules: "Necessities permit the prohibited," and "Necessity is estimated by its degree." This is the answer to that question.